New hopes and emerging collaborations: The Fifth East African Telecentre Leaders Forum

Location: Khartoum, Sudan
Created By: vignesh on 9-Jul-2008 1:40 AM

I have been learning about the East African Telecentre Movement. In fact, it was my dream to visit and learn more about the. My expectations were further induced after reading Ndula Sulah’s (Executive Director, UgaBYTES) blog on his preparatory visit to Sudan. My dream has come true. On 7th June 2008, Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach (Shaddy), Satyan Mishra (Drishree), Nitin Gacchayat (Drishtee), and I reached Khartoum, Sudan to attend the East African Telecentre Leaders Forum (EATLF).

The East African Telecentre Leaders Forum - Sudan, fifth in the series of Telecentre Leaders Forum organised by UgaBYTES in collaboration with telecentre.org. The Gedaref Digital City Organisation (GDCO), Sudan hosted the Fifth East African Telecentre Leaders Forum along with various other partners. The event took place between 09th and 11th June 2008 at Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The uniqueness of Khartoum is that the Blue and White Niles meet their to form the River Nile. The event had seen more than 20 international representatives and made it as one of the legendary EATLF events ever hosted.

EATLF: A quick recap

The biannual East African Telecentre Leader Leaders’ Forum was first launched in the year 2006. Initially, it was started as ‘Ugandan Forum’, but, quickly building the strength of togetherness in the region, it became the East African Telecentre Leaders Forum. The UgaBYTES Initiative spearheaded this strategy, which its leadership learnt from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2005.


· The first EATLF took place on 15th May 2006, at Seeta Mukono, Uganda. It had seen more than 60 participants from the region

· The second EATLF took place between 05th and 7th October 2006, at Seeta Mukono, Uganda. It was attended by 75 Ugandans, 5 Tanzanians, 7 Rwandans, 1 Burundi, 9 Kenyans, 2 USA, 1 UK and 2 Canadian participants

· The third EATLF took place from 03rd to 04th June 2007, at Siaya, Kenya. The event had seen participation of 45 telecentre practitioners, out of which 25 Kenyans, 2 Tanzanians, 11 Ugandans, 2 Rwandans, 1 Sudanese, 2 Burundian, 1 U.K. and 1 Canada

· The fourth EATLF took place on 4th November 2007, at Uganda. It had seen the participation of 48 telecentre practitioners. Among the participants were 18 Ugandans, 1 Sudanese, 7 Kenyans, 6 Tanzanians, 2 Rwandans, 7 Burundians, 1 Swedish and 1 Chilean

Telecentre Movement: The East African Scenario

Since the event was postponed by a day, on 08th June 2008, we had an opportunity to understand the telecentre movement in the region. In his usual way of making things work, Shaddy quickly cooked up the agenda for the day. In his opening remarks, Shaddy introduced the global telecentre.org team and their roles and responsibilities. It was followed by a quick introduction of the participants.

The first wave of telecentres in Africa started in the late 1990s in Mali, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa. The telecentre approach presented an opportunity for addressing the digital divide and spur social development in developing countries. While each telecentre is different, the common focus is on the use of technologies to support community and social development – reducing isolation, bridging the digital divide, promoting health issues, creating economic opportunities, reaching out to people with special needs including youths. The region has seen different telecentre models. Most notable of them are as follows[i] multi-purpose community telecentres (MCTs), school-based telecentres (SBTs), community technology learning centres (CTLCs), digital villages (DVs), community learning and information centres (CLIC), and community multi-media centres (CMCs).

Senegal has more than 9,000 telecentres and of the largest numbers in the African region. Sonatel, a private telephone company supports these telecentres. In Nairobi, Kenya, Africa Online, an Internet Service Provider, setup more than 250 e-Touch telecentres. Very different from the aforementioned, social enterprise model are the donor-funded projects. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have established most of theses telecentres in the region. Most well know is the Nakaseke Multipurpose Community Telecentre in Uganda. In Mozambique two pilot telecentres were established in Manhiça and Namaacha (both in Maputo province), funded by the IDRC[ii]. Sudan has more than 1000 telecentres distributed all over the country setup under the Information Support fund. The fund program is managed by National Telecommunication centre NTI and national Information centre NIC[iii].

The region is home to one of the largest number of pilot telecentre projects. It is important to note that most of the telecentre models in Africa have been designed with the support of development organisations and civil society organisations. Given this backdrop, the participants had brainstormed on the telecentre market trends/target audiences and key challenges facing the telecentre movement.

Telecentre market trends/target audiences


Kiringai Kamau from VACID Africa moderated this session. The session had identified the following as the key target and potential groups for the telecentres: poor and marginalised sections of the society, farmers, students, religious institutions, hospitals, local enterprises, disabled and youths.

Key challenges

This session had elucidated the following key challenges facing the telecentre movement in the region. Pius Aggrey Omondi from Kenyan Telecentre Network (KenTel) moderated this session. Those are infrastructure (electricity and connectivity), sustainability, duplication of initiatives, lack of co-ordination, Language (most of the languages are orally spoken), lack of commitment from the government, cost of maintenance, lack of technical skills, lack of relevant content, lack of ownership by the communities, lack of expert advise, lack of research and development, lack of proper legislations and wide spread of illiteracy.

Followed by this, Satyan Mishra and Nitin Kumar Gacchayat of Drishtee, India and the Souza Sales Jose Avando from Brazilian Telecentre Network (ATN) shared their experiences.

The Fifth East African Telecentre Leaders Forum

Opening session

The forum started off with a welcome address by Ahmed M M Eisa, Founder, Gedaref Digital City Organisation (GDCO), Sudan. The opening session was graced by the presence of Hon. Dr Eisa Bashari, Minister of Science and Technology and Hon. Abdul Gadir Mohammad Ali, Minister of Social Welfare, Government of Sudan. In his keynote address, Dr Eisa Bashri extended his complete support to setup the sudan telecentre academy. Speaking at the forum, Meddie Mayanja, Sr. Programme Officer, telecentre.org emphasised the key objectives and outlined the strategic importance of the forum. In his introductory remarks, Dr Ahamed Abudul Gadir, Chairman, National Information Centre said that the government of Sudan has liberalised the information and communication industries, which has led to growth of telecentres in the country as well as providing chance for practitioners to operate smoothly.

Telecentre experiences: An East African perspective

This session was focused on sharing different telecentre success stories across the region. Meddie moderated this session. Daniel Richard Methusela from Tanzania Telecentre Network (TTN) shared the different telecentre related research initiatives of the University of Dar e Salam. Rita Mijumbi, Uganda Digital Services, Uganda, shared the development centres initiative and the emphasised the importance of strategic multistakeholder partnerships. Kiringai Kamau, VACID Africa, Kenya explained the innovative use of telecentres to improve the functional efficiency of co-operatives in the rural parts of Kenya. Yasir Elsadig, GDCO, Sudan briefed the GDCO’s telecentres to empower the hearing impaired. Nabil Eid, Syria shared the IT Clubs experience in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. Guillaume Ruberintwari, Burundi briefed the opportunities for telecentres to work with the women self-help groups.

National telecentre networks: A status update

The objective of the session was to understand the current status of different national telecentre networks. This session was also moderated by Meddie. Karim Kasim represented the Middle East and North African (MENA) Telecentre Network. He said that this network was born during the third global knowledge conference (GK3), last year. Currently, the network is using different knowledge sharing tools to raise awareness among the telecentre practitioners. Souza Sales Jose Avando, Brazilian Telecentre Network (ATN) said that the country has more than 16,000 telecentres in total. The network has acted as an incubator for different services like distance education through telecentres, creating a bank account, etc. In another partnership, Microsoft has donated 40,000 software licenses to the network. In the near future, it has plans to work with the Mozambique Telecentre Network. Felician Bakoya Ncheye, Tanzanian Telecentre Network is working to deploy the wireless mess networks to improve the connectivity in the country. Pius Aggrey Omondi of KenTel, Ndirima Falcon Godwin of Rwanda Telecentre Network, Dr Muhamad Said alkatim of Sudan, Nkurunziza Jean Paul of Burundi and Ndaula Sulah of UgaBYTES, Uganda shared the current status of their respective networks.

The Telecentre Academy: An overview

In this session, Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach gave an overview of the telecentre academy. He said that the academy is aimed to introduce professionalism among the telecentre practitioners. The academy will supplement the telecentre.org’s efforts to support professional development needs of telecentre managers and practitioners across the globe. The academy targets four different groups namely, the telecentre operators, the policy/decision-makers the network leaders and the community at large. The academy aims to train 500,000 telecentre practitioners across the globe by 2012. In his concluding remarks, he raised three important questions and asked the participants to brainstorm on them.

After this brief introduction, the participants divided into three small groups and brainstormed on the following topics: Group 1 focused on why do we need the telecentre academy? Group 2 focused on what and how of the curriculum for the academy? and the Group 3 focused on the business model for the academy. On the second day of the forum, each group had presented the key outcomes of their discussions.

Knowledge exchange: The need of the hour

In this session, Betty Iyamuremye, Vignesh Sornamohan and Karim Kasim Community Content Facilitators from telecentre.org emphasised the need for knowledge sharing and working together. They offered technical support to all the participants to share their story at the telecentre.org site.

In the following session, Meddie outlined the importance of telecentre staff exchange programme. He said that through telecentre networks, telecentre.org should support telecentre practitioners and network leaders on short-term placements, to travel, work, innovate and learn with peers at telecentre or network level until April 2009. He further mentioned that telecentre.org will provide beneficiaries with travel and subsistence costs as well as other limited expenses for hosts while telecentres or networks will share the cost of basic expenses. The global programme is part of the telecentre.org network building programmes that bring practitioners together on intensive learning and problem solving activities.

Satyan Mishra, Managing Director, Drishtee, India and Nitin Kumar Gacchayat, Co-Founder, Drishtee, India shared their telecentre model with the participants and offered their support to replicate and upscale the social enterprise model in the African continent. Drishtee has franchised more than 4,000 telecentres in the rural India.

Key outcomes

· Telecentre networks went away with concrete opportunities for supporting staff exchange, knowledge sharing and strengthening operations at national level

· Knowledge shared with practitioners from Brazil, India, Mozambique, Syria, Zambia, Somalia and Egypt

· Different collaborative initiatives launched between Brazil and Mozambique; India and Sudan

· Decision made to establish an East African telecentre academy in Uganda

· Sudan will establish the first telecentre academy in Africa

The way forward

The event has given a new direction to the telecentre movement in the region. For the first time, the event was attended by the telecentre.org partners from Brazil and India. It added a new energy and enthusiasm among the East African telecentre leaders. The event has also seen active participation of the government and private players. It shows the interest among other stakeholders in taking the movement forward.

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[i] Mayanja, Meddie (2005), “African Telecentre Networks: An insider perspective”, i4d magazine, Vol. 3, No. 9, Accessed on: 14 June 2008, URL: http://www.i4donline.net/articles/current-article.asp?articleid=424&typ=Features

[ii] Benjamin, Peter (2000), “African experience with telecentres”, International Electronic Publication of the Internet Society, November/December Issue, Accessed on 13 June 2008, URL: http://www.isoc.org/oti/articles/1100/benjamin.html

[iii] Sulah, Ndauala (2008), “The land of kindness and generosity host the 5th EATLF”, telecentre.org, Accessed on 11 June 2008, URL: http://www.telecentre.org/?event=news.detail&id=102570

Contact Name: Vignesh

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